Look to the right. . . .

and you'll see my handy dandy Debt Reduction Progress bar, which I update every month or so. Since I can't figure out how to put the bar into an actual post (why the HTML works in the sidebar but not in my post is a mystery to me. . . .) I wanted to include the current numbers and percentages in this posting so I can look back later and see how far I've come. It seems that each month the percentage of repaid debt falls by just 1%, though my math-muddled mind seems to believe that this will increase more quickly as the debt amounts fall?

So, with that, here are the current numbers:

Second Mortgage Debt: $31,400::::$26,257 (84%)

Student Loan Debt: $61,762::::$56,387 (91%)

Primary Mortgage Debt: $167,500::::$158,016 (94%)

The first number is the original debt amount, the second number is the amount I currently owe. The percentage reflects the percentage of the original debt I still owe. The reason I like the percentages is that when I get demotivated and depressed and discouraged (as happens periodically) I can look back and see that I am actually making some progress, slow though it may be.

A Day Late . . . .

And a dollar short. . .

Where was THIS guy during the housing boom?

Sorry for the silence, readers! I had (minor) surgery in March and boy did it throw me for a loop!

The Tax Man taxeth. . . .

And then he giveth back! I was pleasantly surprised by both my federal and state tax returns this year. For whatever reason, although I earned just about the same amount this year as I did last year, I received a larger refund - by about $400. Part of this is due to the fact that one of my employers is finally taking out state taxes, which helped. I have no idea what led to the federal refund, although I changed my withholdings several times last year (my human resource office must hate me) so maybe I had more taken out than I thought I did.

Anyway! Both refunds have now been deposited in my bank account, which resulted in a nice hefty payment to the student loan services. Yay! I've still got some of the state refund in my account and can't decide whether to use it to pay down my credit card (still somewhat high from the car and cat fiascos) or put it in savings or put it towards my second mortgage or student loan.

Sometimes it's nice to have more money than one knows what to do with, eh? That doesn't happen often so I'm going to revel in it for awhile before waving goodbye to those extra dollars (which, after all, were mine to begin with anyway, right?)